The Day the EMH Went Human
by AdmiralKathryn
Summary: This is one of my first fan-fic stories I ever wrote. The Doctor is exploring ways to become more human, and in doing so he runs into a slight glitch.


Disclaimer: VOYAGER, its crew, and all other subsidies belong to Paramount. As if there were any doubts of that.  
  
1 The Day The EMH Went Human  
  
**Authors note: This story takes place in an alternate time line because all of us VOYAGERS know, the Doctor doesn't have any of these subroutines downloaded in him and at the end…well, you'll see. **  
  
It was another usual day in sickbay. Kes was out and someone had forgotten to turn off the Emergency Medical Hologram again. He hated that because its not like he wanted to be left activated. He was only an Emergency Medical Hologram after all. Anyway, he was sitting at his desk on the office and a random thought came into his mind. What would happen if he downloaded more subroutines into his system to make himself more human-like? He thought the idea was good so he wrote up a quick report to Captain Janeway about it and sent it through the main computer to her.  
  
In her ready room, Captain Janeway was trying, unsuccessfully, to relax. She was sipping her favorite blend of Neelix's coffee and reading an away team's report that had come in the day before. Her computer screen signaled that a message was coming in. She took a look at it and discovered that it was from the Doctor, but it wasn't about some medical catastrophe. It simply stated that he wished to add a more human-like personality. She thought it was a good idea that was well thought out but she was reluctant to let him do this while B'Elanna was on the second half of the away team mission on the uninhabited planet they were orbiting.  
  
Voyager had needed more foodstuffs and they had come upon this uninhabited M-class planet that had all the vegetation that they would need for about a month. B'Elanna had wanted to go down and scan for dilithium so Captain Janeway said she could go for a little while. She smiled knowing that B'Elanna was as happy as could be expected of an engineer that was scanning for dilithium. The engineers aboard Voyager, especially Lieutenant Carey as well as B'Elanna were worried that they would run out of dilithium while they were on this star trek across the Delta Quadrant. When they found out that an entity who wanted to save its kind was the one that pulled them here, they were all pretty mad. But they adjusted for the most part and they had prevented the Kazon from taking over the Caretaker's Array…in short, they blew it up.  
  
"Doctor to Captain Janeway," came a voice over her communicator badge that all Starfleet personnel wore pinned to their chest. It startled her for a moment. She lightly tapped it and answered, "Janeway here."  
  
"I was just wondering if you had read my request yet Captain. Do you have an answer for me?"  
  
She wanted to say no so badly but in her heart she knew that if the Doctor wanted to become more human, he needed the right to make his own choices. Still, there was the possibility…  
  
"Captain?"  
  
"I'm still here Doctor. Umm, yes. My answer is yes but you have to understand all the risks and the…" she tried to warn him. He was just to darn impatient though. "Thank you captain. I am going to go and start downloading now. Doctor out."  
  
The Doctor was off the communicator badge and Captain Janeway wondered what she had just gotten herself into. She didn't have the time to wonder though because at that particular moment the red alert klaxon had just gone off and she ran out to the bridge.  
  
"Report," she said as she sat into her chair. Chakotay was her ex- Maquis first officer. She had a lot of ex-Maquis aboard her ship serving as officers. It was part of her plan to integrate the Maquis and the Starfleet personnel. Chakotay turned to her and began to report what was wrong. "We just had a Kazon-Ogla ship come onto sensors and they do not have any weapons on-line at this moment. Their shields are up but only at 42% and we suspect they were attacked by the Kazon-Nistrim. They have not answered to our hails and they do not have warp capability."  
  
Captain Janeway thought it sounded suspicious and she was a very curious woman sometimes, but these were the Kazon. They couldn't be trusted even if they say they are runaways. They had already learned that from experience.  
  
"Mr. Tuvok, what is our status?"  
  
"Shields are up at 100 percent and phasers are on standby," came the report from Voyager's security/tactical officer. He was Vulcan in origin and he was the person that Janeway trusted the most on this ship. Even if he didn't express any of his emotions under any circumstance. Most people on Voyager thought that it was unnatural, but for Tuvok it was the only way he knew how to act. Sometimes it got the crew into trouble though, since Vulcan's don't lie.  
  
"Janeway to Torres."  
  
"We're here captain. What's happening?"  
  
"B'Elanna, we need to do a quick transport. Are all of you at the given coordinates?"  
  
"All except Ensign Dufort."  
  
"Get him over there now!"  
  
"Aye captain. He's here now."  
  
"Transporter room. Beam up the away team on my mark. Drop shields."  
  
"Shields down."  
  
"Mark. Transport… Raise shields."  
  
"Shields raised."  
  
"Transporter room, did you get everyone?"  
  
"Aye sir."  
  
Captain Janeway cringed at the 'sir'. She never liked to be called sir. Not even ma'am unless it was a crunch situation. Captain was just fine. All of a sudden, Voyager was rocked violently to the right. Janeway called for a report.  
  
"We have been hit by a crude replication of a photon torpedo Captain. Shields are down to 88% and holding. Casualties reported on decks 8 and 10."  
  
"Janeway to Emergency Medial Hologram."  
  
"I'm here captain. It seems people keep forgetting to shut me off after a while."  
  
"Report."  
  
"Four crewman have broken arms from falling. One Ensign has a broken leg and a fractured arm. I expect a full recovery from all. They all will need at lea…"  
  
"Very well. Janeway out."  
  
There was something wrong though, Tuvok reported that the Kazon-Ogla ship has gone to impulse power and they are leaving the area. This was just getting stranger by the minute but the duty shift was close to ending so Captain Janeway tried to put it out of her mind while she walked to her quarters for some well deserved rest.  
  
Back in the sickbay, after everything had calmed down and everyone had left, Kes was helping the Doctor search for some new subroutines. She wanted to be clued in on what was happening but the Doctor only told her that she'd find out when they were done. After an hour of work, they had found four new subroutines to download. Three were the Doctors choice and one Kes had chosen. The ones the Doctor chose sounded fun but the one Kes chose aounded boring to the Doctor. It was a compassion subroutine and it was to help the patients feel more at ease said Kes. Since the Doctor trusted her opinion, he listened to her and downloaded it into his program.  
  
The next thing the Doctor felt was the rush of emotions surging through his program. He had never felt this before and he thought it was interesting. Kes smiled and said that it wouldn't feel so great after a while but to enjoy it while it lasted.  
  
"Have a good night Doctor. Computer," she commanded, "Deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram." After she commanded the computer to deactivate him, he winked out of sight. What Kes and the Doctor didn't know though was that they had unknowingly downloaded an attitude subroutine, hidden in the compassion one, somehow.  
  
In her quarters, Captain Janeway just couldn't fall asleep. She had tried everything. She even used her replicator rations to replicate a glass of warm milk. So much for 20th century techniques. She was wide- awake and it was driving her crazy because her body said 'sleep!' and her mind said 'no!'  
  
"Computer, activate EMH program. Patch him through to my monitor."  
  
The next thing that Captain Janeway heard was something she never, ever wanted to hear from any member of her crew. Living or hologram. It was sarcasm.  
  
"It never fails. Somebody finally deactivated me and ten minutes later I'm reactivated to be summoned by the Captain!"  
  
Janeway was outraged by this. She was going to find out now what was going on, "Doctor. I never want to hear that kind of comment again from you or any of my crew."  
  
"Oh, yes ma'am. I'll never do it again."  
  
Something was very wrong here and Captain Janeway couldn't put her finger on it but she needed some sleep badly. So she asked her question. "Doctor, I can't sleep. What do you recommend?"  
  
"That's what you activated me for? You can't sleep? Why don't you just use your brains and replicate some sleeping pills?"  
  
" Huh? Sleeping pills? Doctor, I'll be right down to sickbay."  
  
She dressed quickly but she left her hair down. She ran through the corridors noticing how they needed some color, badly. Starfleet gray isn't her favorite color. When she ran into the sickbay the Doctor was sitting at his desk looking at some PADDs. She asked him to give her a hypospray that would put her to sleep. He didn't have one trace of the sarcasm in his attitude. It was like it just disappeared. She thought that was weird. She deactivated the Doctor and walked out of sickbay wondering what had just happened a while ago. When she got to her quarters she got back into her favorite pajamas and fell into a blissful sleep.  
  
The next day Captain Janeway called Kes into her ready room and began to interrogate the little Ocampa. Kes didn't appear to mind though; she answered every question that Captain Janeway asked her very truthfully.  
  
"Kes, exactly what subroutines did you download into the Doctor?" asked Captain Janeway with a very intimidating, serious look on her face.  
  
"We downloaded a humor subroutine, a vocal subroutine, an artistic subroutine and a compassion subroutine. That's all though because I thought that he might not adjust to too many new emotions all at once."  
  
"Okay, were there any hidden subroutines in the larger ones?"  
  
"Not that I know of. Why?"  
  
Janeway remembered the night before. She began to not like what she was remembering about the Doctor's arrogance and sarcasm. Although she had told only Chakotay, she felt that for Kes to understand she needed to know what happened. She also felt that she needed to tell Kes about B'Elanna running diagnostics on the new program.  
  
"…And B'Elanna is running diagnostic scans on the Doctor's new program just to see if there was anything that may have hidden from you when you were looking at the new subroutines. I hope that's okay."  
  
"That's okay Captain, I don't mind, but what about the Doctor? Does he think that it's okay?"  
  
"Yes. He was quite reluctant about letting us scan his program. You know, privacy issues."  
  
Captain Janeway finished her conversation with Kes and began to walk down to the sickbay to check on B'Elanna and the Doctor. Meanwhile down in sickbay, B'Elanna was feverishly trying to scan his program but the Doctor had put security codes in his program and she couldn't break them. It was her observation (that she would have to log) that the Doctor had gotten an attitude when she tried to begin the scans. Within moments though, Captain Janeway and Kes walked through the door and found the Doctor laughing as he watched B'Elanna get very mad trying to break the encrypted codes. Captain Janeway disliked what she was seeing.  
  
"Doctor! What is the meaning of this?" she was turning a crimson color in her face and the Doctor just kept on laughing like a hyena.  
  
"Captain, the Doctor has encrypted his program and I can't break the codes. I've tried every code I know and it won't let me in!" B'Elanna looked as if her Klingon half was going to take over and kill the first mortal thing her hands came into contact with. Janeway would not want to be that mortal thing.  
  
"Calm down B'Elanna. Let me try to break it. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve." Captain Janeway went over and took the console controls and routed them to the bridge. She told B'Elanna to wait in the sickbay until the codes were broken or until there was an emergency in Engineering. Once on the bridge, she sat in her captain's chair and began to try to break the encryption codes. Chakotay came in a few minutes later and sat down in the commander's chair. He looked at what she was doing and asked, "What are you doing Captain?"  
  
"I am trying, futilely might I add, to break these codes the EMJ put on his program."  
  
Chakotay had a very confused look on his face when he asked, "Dare I ask what an EMJ is Captain?"  
  
"Yes, the EMJ stands for the Emergency Medical Jerk!" she looked very angry and quite tense. Chakotay didn't say anything for five minutes or so, until the captain banged her fist on the armrest.  
  
"Captain?" asked Chakotay carefully. He still didn't understand this whole EMJ situation but he decided not to pursue that course of conversation for fear that an interstellar war would start between the Captain and the EMH. "What happened down there?"  
  
Captain Janeway sighed and began to explain, "B'Elanna went to the sickbay on my orders to scan the Doctor's programming to find out if any hidden subroutines were there. When I arrived at sickbay, the Doctor was sitting there laughing at B'Elanna, who was trying to break the codes he put on his program and it's damn near impossible to break the codes!"  
  
"But Captain, have you tried something obvious? Usually when people want to code something, as the Doctor is his program, they'll use something obvious, say, the frequency of his medical tricorder, or better yet, his program security codes B'Elanna helped him with."  
  
Captain Janeway hadn't thought about that and when she tried the codes of his program, low and behold, it worked. Captain Janeway routed the access she had just been granted to B'Elanna's console in sickbay while at the same time she told the computer, "Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram and reactivate him in thirty minutes."  
  
Thirty minutes had gone by and B'Elanna had just finished the initial scans. She still needed another thirty minutes to run the diagnostic scans to find out if there were any subroutines that shouldn't be there. The captain tried to comply with B'Elanna's request but the thirty minutes were up.  
  
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the Doctor's program clicked on automatically. He seemed back to his normal parameters…for now at least. Captain Janeway wasn't taking any chances though. "Doctor, do you recall anything that happened in the last two hours?"  
  
"I remember B'Elanna walking in to sickbay to scan my program, then I was deactivated, and now I was turned on and there doesn't seem to be any sick people," he sounded a little irritated and everyone noticed.  
  
He has no memory of anything he did. This is strange; this must have something to do with those subroutines. The Doctor has never done anything like this before. Captain Janeway couldn't believe this. She needed answers and there was only one way to remedy this problem for the time being, delete the subroutines.  
  
"What?! Delete my personality? But Captain…"  
  
"No buts. I'm sorry Doctor but you did some terrible things in the past few days and you don't remember them. This is the only way to solve the problem until I can figure it out. We're going to save the subroutines and run diagnostic scans on them. If, and only if there is nothing wrong with them and they are compatible with your program, we'll install them back in. Do you understand."  
  
A little dispirited, the Doctor mumbled a small "yes captain."  
  
Captain Janeway turned and told B'Elanna to clear the new subroutines off of the Doctor's program and run the diagnostic scans on them, then she added that before B'Elanna put them back into the Doctor's program, to let Janeway decide which ones were to go back in.  
  
"B'Elanna, do you really have to check all my routines. I feel my privacy is being invaded."  
  
"You shouldn't feel anything. I took every last one of your new subroutines out," B'Elanna was definitely thinking of letting her Klingon half out right about now to 'strangle' the Doctor. He could be so annoying when he wanted to be.  
  
"You're doing it all wrong Lieutenant. You're supposed to…"  
  
That was the last straw for B'Elanna. Her limit came to an end here. "Doctor, if you don't shut up and let me do my job, I'll deactivate your program for good!"  
  
The Doctor turned and walked into his office muttering, "Klingons can be sooooo touchy."  
  
B'Elanna turned back to her console and was scanning the compassion subroutine and found an abnormal algorithm inside of it. It was an old, twentieth century computer virus. She double-checked her scan to make absolutely sure and then she called the Captain and Kes.  
  
Five minutes later in the Captain's ready room, B'Elanna was explaining her unusual findings in the subroutine. "It's a semi-permanent routine. There are so many complex equations and encryption codes I'd have to figure out before we can fix the Doctor."  
  
"Time?" asked Captain Janeway apprehensively.  
  
"Two days, minimum. Sorry Captain, that's the best guess I can give you," B'Elanna was angry with herself for not being able to understand the equations, but it wasn't her fault.  
  
"Get on it. If you need any help, feel free to get it from Commander Tuvok or myself."  
  
"Yes Captain," and B'Elanna turned and walked out the doors, heading to sickbay to try and break the equations. Meanwhile, Kes turned towards Captain Janeway, her eyes looked moist. Janeway was puzzled at why Kes would be crying over this. It wasn't her fault after all.  
  
"But it is my fault Captain! I put the subroutines into the Doctor's program without scanning them to see if there was anything wrong with them. It all my fault that the Doctor is acting like this Captain!" Kes began to weep freely. She was only four years old after all.  
  
Captain Janeway walked over to Kes and embraced her with the air of a mother. Kes collapsed into her arms. It would've been very awkward had anyone just walked in, but door chimes prevented that in the twenty-fourth century. "Come in," Captain Janeway said as she let go of Kes. Kes wiped her eyes just as Commander Chakotay walked in.  
  
"Captain, the Doctor's gone absolutely crazy! He's got his holo- emitter and he's tearing around the ship singing opera!" Chakotay didn't sound very happy. "Tuvok says he's a security risk and even though it sounds silly, I'm inclined to agree this time. What if instead of singing he was running around with a hypospray? There's no way to tell what he will do."  
  
Captain Janeway agreed with Chakotay and told the computer to take the Doctors program off-line. The computer complied, but there was no telling if he could reactivate himself. At least not for the moment.  
  
TWO DAYS LATER  
  
B'Elanna was so tired; she could hardly keep her eyes open. But all of her hard work had paid off. After two days of searching for the old style ways of solving mathematical equations and the encrypted codes, she finally broke every one of them. She had more work to do, she knew that but there was that nagging feeling of the sandman sprinkling his dust in her eyes. She was so tired. Maybe if she took a quick nap…No! She had to stay awake. She had to go see the Captain and ask her what was next.  
  
"Sleep is next Lieutenant," Captain Janeway sounded very motherly these days, and she didn't even have any kids!  
  
"But Captain…" B'Elanna protested. There was so much work.  
  
"B'Elanna I don't want to order you to sleep but I will if I have too. You need sleep. You've been up for the last 2 days and the bags under your eyes make you look like you went to the Andromeda Galaxy and back. If you don't go now, I'll get Lieutenant Tuvok to take you and station a security guard outside your door."  
  
B'Elanna knew that Captain Janeway was serious about that and she didn't need an escort to her quarters. Especially Tuvok. "Alright Captain I'll go." And so B'Elanna walked to her quarters and fell into a blissful and much needed sleep right away.  
  
When she awoke, she was in Sickbay. The Doctor loomed over her as if she were a lab rat. She immediately tried to sit up, but she was being held down. She was scared and mad all at the same time.  
  
"What the HELL are you doing?" B'Elanna didn't take kindly to being abducted from her quarters. Especially not by a hologram, and especially not by an insane, power-mad one.  
  
"You're synaptic pathways destabilized for 3.2 seconds. I authorized an emergency transport to sickbay so that you wouldn't suffer permanent damage," the Doctor was giving B'Elanna a total line of crap ad she didn't like his tone. Her hand automatically flew to where her combadge should have been. To her dismay the Doctor had removed it.  
  
"Did you really think that I would be careless enough to leave the combadge on your shirt so that you could call Janew…"  
  
"…Computer, shut down the emergency medical hologram for 1 hour."  
  
"Unable to comply," came the computer's mechanized voice. "Voice print unknown."  
  
"Override. Authorization Torres 74656-delta-pi," and the Doctor winked out of sight. Thank Kahless that she had changed her override commands the night before.  
  
"WHAT? Thank Kahless????!!!! I must be having a really bad day to be thanking him," B'Elanna wasn't very fond of her Klingon half.  
  
She called the captain from the Doctor's office and told her everything. Then she walked back out to the medical lab and began to do some scans on the 20th century virus. It was still encoded in the Doctor's program. She knew an old Maquis trick for deleting files but she didn't know if it would work on the Federation technology. She put in the following equation:  
  
1.1 NX-2000-483-r723I-sdnjlw93  
  
That was an old undo file B'Elanna had used on the main computer on a Cardassian freighter and it had caused the ship to self-destruct. She was directing it into the Doctor's matrix though and focusing it on the virus so hopefully it would do more good than damage.  
  
4 MONTHS LATER  
  
B'Elanna's hard work had paid off. She erased all traces of the virus and the captain gave her permission to re-insert the original programs. The Doctor was so happy to have his personality back that he began to cry holographic tears. Or so they seemed…. They were real! He was so surprised to find that his face was wet with the salty droplets. He recalled upon all the routines that B'Elanna put back in. One was not one of the originals he or Kes put in. It was simply entitled 'HUMAN 101'. The Doctor saw B'Elanna over at the console smiling. To his surprise the Doctor actually smiled back.  
  
That evening a big reception was held in the mess hall in honor of the Doctor and to celebrate the fact that his program hadn't so much as frizzed since 'the incident'. Neelix had prepared some of his favorite Talaxian foods (but as we all know, everyone stayed as far away from those as possible).  
  
"My friends. My comrades. My brothers. This evening is a celebration of life, and accomplishments. I never thought I'd be 'human' in a matter of speaking, but, thanks to the incredible talents of the late Kes, B'Elanna, and the unconquerable spirit of Captain Janeway, who never gave up on me no matter what I did, I am finally able to experience it. I wish Seven – I mean, Annika – could have joined us this evening. Knowing that your life can be switched of with one word is very disheartening; I loathed it all of my life. Computer, disengage EMH, computer, reactivate EMH… I am here to tell all of you that no matter what happens in your life, you are only human. Life your life to your fullest, and if you get hurt I am a Doctor, not a magician but I'll still be there to help you find your way again. Captain, thank you for helping me find my way."  
  
As usual, no one understood the Doctor's speech except those to whom it pertained, and to this day, Kathryn Janeway is still glad she helped to participate on the day the EMH went human. 


End file.
